Men of Tin
by MLGumm
Summary: There are a series of mysterious suicides sweeping through Beacon Hills, but they don't, at first, appear to be caused by anything supernatural. But things are rarely the way we think they are, as our favorite group of werewolves and co. are about to find out. Or, the one where love spells are really fucked up for all parties involved.
1. Chapter 1

Most people, when they're about to die, see their life flashing in front of their eyes. It's all cake at their fifth birthday party, and their first kiss, and all those times their mom kissed away their boo-boos. I think I would have liked that. Reliving the moments with my mom, I mean. That would have been nice. But, me? When I think I'm gonna die? I don't get that. All I have time for is one thought, one measly question, before the world goes dark: _Why the frak am I always paired up with Derek?_

It was a better question than I realized at the time.

* * *

It all started with a bunch of suicides. The first two we investigated, but brushed off, because there wasn't anything supernatural about them, and they definitely weren't murders.

It sucked; I'm not saying that I wanted someone (or something) out there killing people, but at least then we could have done something about it, you know? But, as it was, there wasn't anything we thought we could do. Like I said, it sucked.

It wasn't until me, Scotty, and Isaac (ugh) were watching Danny suck face with a girl from his English class that I began to theorize the victims might not have been the ones under a spell.

"Is this happening?" Scott whispered, loudly in the silent cafeteria, but quietly for him.

Isaac tilted his head, sipping his milk thoughtfully. "Maybe he's got a lower number on the Kinsey Scale than he thought?" He wrinkled his nose up and stole a fry from my plate. Motherfucker. They were soggy cafeteria fries, but still. "Or maybe he lost a bet."

I swiped two fries from his plate in retaliation, but he was too lost in thought to notice. "Or maybe he's under a spell," I said under my breath, trusting their werewolf ears to catch it.

"You think?" Scott asked. He bit his lip, looking worried. "Maybe I should go sniff him? Do spells have smells?"

I was already pulling out my phone when he asked. I flipped through my contacts 'til I got to _Wolverine_, sadly one of the most called there.

_911. Do spells have smells?_

It took a few seconds for the reply to come. Horrible, wonderful, seconds, in which Danny moaned and my dick twitched in interest, because that? That was hot. Scott looked at me, scandalized, and I shrugged. It wasn't my fault he could smell that or whatever. (Except for how it kind of was…) The phone buzzed.

_Sometimes. Where are you? What's happening?_

I ignored the second and third parts. "He said sometimes. You should try, and if that doesn't work we'll skip and stop at Deaton's."

Scott stood slowly, like that would make it less obvious that he was weaving his way towards Danny and the very enthusiastic girl on his lap. If anything, it just made it more noticeable. A few heads swiveled his way, more as he got closer. Lydia and Jackson, who had been watching all this with an odd sort of fascination from the other two seats at the table, shook their heads slightly. No answers there. "Danny? Are you… okay, man?"

Danny paused for a moment, looking up from where his face had been buried in the girl's neck. He looked dazed. It reminded me of how Scott looked whenever he and Allison had been doing stuff I'd rather not picture them doing. "Really good, actually. Have you met Violet? She comes to our games all the time." Violet gave him a shy smile. "We started dating yesterday."

"Congratulations," Scott said, sincerely, because he's nice like that. "But, uh, we all thought you were gay?"

Danny nuzzled Violet's neck happily, then smiled with sage understanding at him. "There are always exceptions. Violet's mine."

"Cool." Scott stood there for a minute, then leaned forward to clap Danny on the back, taking a not so subtle sniff when he got close enough. Lydia rolled her eyes, and Jackson snorted. Scott patted Danny's back a couple more times, awkwardly, then turned and came back.

"Nothing?" Isaac asked.

"Nothing," Scott replied.

"Then off to the vet's we go."

* * *

On our way out we wound up collecting everyone else, minus Allison, kinda ruining my Wizard of Oz metaphor. It was cool though. Between me and Isaac I'm not sure who was the Lion or the Tin Man, and I wasn't sure I liked the idea of being either.

As we exited the building in the most unsuspicious way a herd of teenagers can manage in the middle of the school day, we watched Derek come tearing down the road in his sleek, black Camaro, looking like he was entering a warzone. Next to him, I reflected, we were damn near subtle. He pulled up haphazardly to the curb and wrenched open his door, scanning the area for threats. I waved at him.

"What's happening." Derek growled, eyes flashing red. "You texted 911."

"Danny was kissing a girl!" said Scott. Sensing the need for further information, he added, "Danny's gay. We think he might be a spell, so we're going to see Deaton."

"That's the emergency." He turned towards Stiles. "911 is for life or death situations, Stiles. Not for some kid experimenting with his sexuality."

"So if I texted you '911, I might be gay!' you wouldn't do anything? And here I thought we were becoming friends," I said. Snarked. Same difference.

He stared at me just long enough for it to be uncomfortable, then turned towards his betas. "Stay in school. If you skip too often they'll get suspicious, and I'll need you to be able to leave when the next threat's in town."

Isaac and Erica grumbled, but Boyd just shrugged and they turned back. Since everything else that had gone down they were starting act something like obedient. It was weird. What was even weirder though was the conflicted look on Jackson's face as his gaze flickered between Lydia, Derek, and the retreating betas. Lydia, bless her pristine, icy heart, just shoved him and said, "Go. I'll call you if something comes up." To everyone's surprise, except hers and seemingly Derek's, he went back in without so much as a defiant clench to his jaw.

Derek looked annoyed, but didn't say anything. Curiouser and curiouser.

* * *

We wound up split between three cars because Lydia didn't feel like catching a ride with either of us, which I pretended didn't hurt as much as it did.

Scott fiddled with the radio from his spot in the passenger seat, looking decidedly less mopey than he had since Allison declared that they needed a break. Danny's mysterious change in sexuality was apparently just weird enough to knock him out of it. I was enjoying it while I could; he was almost more focused on her when they were apart than when they were together. Besides, he was picking a radio station that wasn't spewing bland, nonstop angst music, which I chalked up to a win.

* * *

When we pulled up to Deaton's Derek and Lydia were already there, waiting outside. It wasn't surprising. I wasn't about to risk speeding and have my dad hear about me being out of school, so I had been driving at roughly the same speed as my grandma did when she came to visit.

As I parked Lydia tucked her lip-gloss and mirror back into her purse. Derek just continued to scowl. Scott got out of the car before I killed the engine, already heading for the door. I trailed after.

Inside there was only one person in the waiting room, a small, young woman with curly, blond hair and a small, black cat on her lap. She glanced at our small group curiously, but looked away when confronted with Derek's glare. Lydia smacked his arm and smiled at the nervous woman. "Do you know if the doctor's in? I left our dog, Prada, here for an inpatient procedure, but Derek here is really worried about him."

Derek continued to glower angrily, but the woman now looked at him sympathetically. "He said he'd be right back. He just needed to get some forms for me to fill out."

"Thanks," Lydia said. We all settled in the chairs, trying to look inconspicuous. We weren't very good at it, but the woman didn't seem to notice.

A couple minutes later Deaton appeared. He raised an eyebrow pointedly at Scott, but Lydia interrupted before he could say anything. "Could we see Prada? It's a bit of an emergency."

"Of course." Deaton turned towards the woman and handed her some forms. "This may take a while, Ms. Potter. Why don't you fill this out and leave it on the counter when you're done. Bastet should be fine as long as you make sure to give her her medication."

The woman smiled and nodded, and Deaton motioned for us to follow.

* * *

By the time we finished explaining Danny's situation to Deaton he was starting to look worried. I found that extremely worrying. "What's wrong?" I asked.

Deaton hesitated. "I can't be certain without more research-"

"What is it?" Derek growled. Shit, he didn't even like Deaton on a good day.

He gave Derek a look that made me pause, and he wasn't even looking my way. "As I said, I can't be certain, but it sounds like some sort of love spell."

He looked too apprehensive for it to be just that, though. "Then why do you look so nervous?" I asked.

"From what you tell me, Danny has no attraction to women, whatsoever. For someone to alter him on such a fundamental level, that uses a lot of magic. A good question to be asking yourselves right now is why someone would want to do that to him."

"We should start by asking Violet," Scott suggested. "Maybe she just wanted to be loved back. I mean, Danny said she went to all the games, and she seemed pretty happy to making out with him."

"Let's hope that's what this is. Lydia, Stiles, see what you can come up with. I'll check my sources and we'll compare our results tomorrow," Deaton said. "Derek, Scott, you might want to keep a closer eye on things over the next few days. If this isn't just some girls dream come true, things are going to start getting messy, and fast."

* * *

As we were leaving we ran into Ms. Potter, who was just leaving the newly filled out forms. She smiled winningly. "How's your dog?" she asked.

Lydia stayed and talked to the woman for a bit, jedi mind-tricking her into believing we were all normal. Derek high-tailed it out of there, and we followed close on his heels.

It wasn't until we were about to drive away that something that had been nagging, unformed, at the back of my mind came to the fore. "Hey, Scott, how long does it usually take to fill out that after visit paperwork stuff?"

He looked up from where he was fiddling with the radio again. "About five minutes, usually. Why?"

We'd been in Deaton's office for at least half an hour.

"Maybe nothing. I'll text you when I know for sure," I said.

As we pulled away, I made sure to memorize her license plate number.


	2. Chapter 2

I dropped Scott off at school in time for lacrosse practice so that he could keep an eye on Danny. I was at a red light not even two blocks away when my phone buzzed and _Catwoman_ flashed on the screen.

_He's looking so twitterpated, it's obnoxious. I don't know how she isn't creeped out by this._

I snorted and texted her back: _Maybe because it's Danny, Erica? You know, the guy with dimples worthy of a J.L. Hooker song?_

_Seriously, Stiles, figure this out._

I put my phone back in my pocket. The light turned green.

I considered my options, as I drove along. I could get back, sort through pages and pages of mostly useless information on the internet, or I could follow up on a hunch, and follow up on Ms. Potter's license plate. The only problem with that second option was that I couldn't do it at home. If Danny was helping, yeah, that'd be no problem, but I wasn't a hacker. My knowledge of computers is mostly limited to knowing where to find reliable research; SIRS and ipl2 were great normally, but real magic required flipping through obscure message boards on page 50 of a google search. But if I wanted to get into the town's license plate registry I was going to have to do it from somewhere official. Like my dad's office.

I didn't realize I was heading that way until I was just a block away. I turned right before it came into sight and pulled over. I needed an excuse to be there.

* * *

"Hey, Jennifer," I said with a grin, "looking as beautiful as ever, I see."

Jennifer looked surprised, and I didn't blame her. I used to come into the station all the time as a kid and she got used to seeing me around, but I hadn't been in much since Scott got bit. "Hello Stiles. What are you doing here?"

I shook the plastic container of deli shop salad in my hand a bit. "Thought I'd make sure my dad isn't surviving on break room donuts and take-out. You mind if I go see him?"

She looked a little sad as she said, "Honey, your dad isn't supposed to be in for a couple of hours."

_I know. _"Really? We, uh, haven't really been all that caught up lately. Do you think I could just leave this on his desk? I'm probably not going home for a few more hours, so…" At least I didn't have to fake the guilt.

She worried he bottom lip with her teeth, thinking. "Go on through. I'm sure he'll be glad to see that you thought of him, even if it means he doesn't have an excuse to go order out for dinner."

Normally I'd be all over that bit of information, but I had a job to do; shaming my dad into healthy eating would just have to happen later. "Thanks. It was really nice seeing you again."

A few more officers nodded to me or said hi as I went past, and it was nice. Almost like the past couple years never happened. I resolved to start coming back more often when this was over. But now was not the time. I closed the door to my dad's office behind me and put the salad on the desk.

It didn't take too long to pull up the license registration. I've known all of my dad's passwords since I was twelve, and he hasn't changed them yet. That was probably something else I was going to have to bring up, but couldn't at the moment.

Ms. Potter turned out to be Malea Chase, a novelist who lived near the woods on the opposite side of town from Derek. It would explain why he never noticed her shenanigans before, if I was willing to assume that she was the witch responsible for this. Which I was. I printed her address and left quickly, nodding distractedly at the officers as I tried to get Scott on the phone. Sometimes I don't even know why he bothers to have one, with how rarely he picks it up.

"What's going on?"

"Gah!" I clutched at my chest, wielding my phone like the world's least effective bludgeon. "Ohmygod, Derek. Why can't you ever behave like a normal person? Wave at me, knock on my window, not _break into my car and wait for me inside."_

I was still trying to reach Scott as I clambered into my car, so at first I hadn't noticed that my passenger seat was radiating a sense of doom and gloom all wrapped up into one desperately unhappy package. Sometimes I thought that the only pleasures Derek took in life were lurking and sneaking up on teenagers to give them heart attacks.

"You weren't at your house, so I tracked your scent here. Why are you here?" He was giving me that weird searching look he had whenever I did something he isn't expecting. At least it wasn't the approving face; I always knew I was doing something extra stupid when he looked at me that way.

Yeah, most of our conversations were in facial expressions. It would have been easier if he just used his words, but nothing about Derek's life was easy, and he tended to not be very good at changing that. Or at dealing with change in general, really.

I started up the car. It would be good to have some back-up while I checked out the house, and Derek was better than nothing. I said, "Okay, so, you remember the woman at Deaton's? With the cat."

"Her perfume stung my nose," said Derek.

"Huh. I didn't smell anything." I pondered this for a moment before getting back on topic. "Well, some things I noticed about her didn't add up, and long story short, I think she's our wicked witch. I figured I'd check out her house and see if I can confirm my theory. I tried to call Scott, but he must have left his phone in his locker or something, so it looks like you're my back-up."

Derek shifted uncomfortably and I raised an eyebrow at him. "You could have called me, or one of my betas."

I shrugged. "I probably would have, if I couldn't get ahold of Scott or Lydia. But you have a habit of turning up even when I don't call."

We drove the rest of the way in near silence, me planning our reconnaissance mission, and him clumsily texting his betas with orders.

* * *

A few minutes later we pulled up a block away from an unassuming little house on the edge of town, who's backyard appeared to bleed into the forest seamlessly. There were neighbors, but not for a way in either direction. In the driveway out front there were four cars, Malea's among them.

Derek rolled down the window and sniffed the air suspiciously. "I can't smell anything here," he said, sounding disturbed.

"So I was wrong, then?" I'd been so sure.

"No, I mean I don't smell anything. The house and the air around it have no scent at all."

We looked at each other briefly and climbed out. I was almost regretting that we'd grown out of the phase when people tried to get me to stay in the car. The house was almost creepy in how nondescript, how unmemorable, it was. I shivered in the warm, afternoon air.

Derek sniffed the air again, but this time his head snapped in the direction of the woods. "I can smell her cheap perfume about a mile out into the woods. Wait here." He ran off before I could even open my mouth to protest. Okay, I guess we weren't over that stage after all.

I went back to my Jeep and opened the trunk. The tire iron I kept in there was a welcome, heavy weight in my hand. I closed up my car, sent one last text off to _Superman_.

_Scott, don't freak out. Following Derek into creepy woods to go after witch._

I sent it, considered, and sent another.

_P.S. If I die, don't let Isaac claim any of my stuff._

And then I headed off into the forest, trailing a werewolf who was hunting a witch, because my life is surreal and I make awful decisions. I really hoped Scott read my text before they started sorting my belongings.

* * *

Author's Note: Hello all! Feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

"Fu-" I cried out, before I could stop myself, cupping my probably bruised chin. The underbrush in this side of the woods was a lot denser than on Derek's side. I wasn't even going to pretend that I was being quiet with all the crashing through the brush going on, but I wasn't exactly going to yell out my location either. I shoved the offending branch out of my way and soldiered on.

I maybe spent more time in the woods than is probably healthy.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out, hoping it was Scott. It was a text from _Commissioner Gordon. _

_On my way to work. We're out of milk._

I texted back: _Out w/ Scott. I'll pick some up on my way home._

I slipped my phone back into my pocket and prepared to continue my trek, but then I heard it. Somewhere up ahead I could hear voices, faintly, a couple different women, at least, and a familiar, angry man. Stamping through the woods I couldn't hear anything, but I could definitely hear it now.

Twigs snapped beneath my feet, but otherwise I was pretty quiet. The witch(es?) didn't seem to notice, and while I didn't doubt that Derek had, he wasn't drawing attention to me.

The clearing ahead was lit by the light of a large bonfire; every once and a while the fire spit out multicolor flames that licked at the dirt and sky but never lit anything beyond the stone pit it lurked in. Something boiled in a nearby pot; a dozen bottles, half of them filled, were crowding a nearby table. About a dozen yards away Derek paced restlessly in a ring of mountain ash, snarling at the half dozen women surrounding him. He didn't look my way, but his nostrils flared and he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Ha, like I was going to listen to him. I just needed to get close enough to break the circle before they had a chance to stop me…

"You should not have interfered, wolf. This was no concern of yours!" said a young girl with a sneering face. I was pretty sure I'd seen her around school before, but I couldn't remember exactly where. Still, you think I'd remember someone who talked like a super villain from the silver age.

An older woman with the longest, darkest hair I'd ever seen stepped forward from her place near the fire, then. She put her hand on the girl's shoulder, drawing the girl behind her. "_Wolf_," she said in a voice like ice water trickling down my spine, "_are you alone?"_

Derek jerked back like he'd been shot, claws and fangs springing out of him like the wolf could protect him from what was happening now. "_No_," he croaked, the word sounding as if it were being torn out of his chest.

I started to circle around to the other side, closer to him. He was only half a dozen yards away now.

She smiled. "_How many?_"

"_Four._"

Well, I had back-up. That was nice. Except for the part where I didn't know who exactly was on their way and how far out they were.

She smiled at him, a shark's smile complete with sharpened teeth. Lovely. "_And where are they?" _Shit.

Derek's jaw twitched and his knuckles cracked. "_Three are two miles out, to the north," _he said.

"_And the other?" _I supposed that was my cue.

This was gonna hurt.

I darted out of the woods, sprinting straight for the circle containing Derek. If I could just break the line of ash-

Pain bloomed in my side as the world's youngest old-timey villain tackled me to the dirt. I shifted my grip on the bat and snapped it back into her ribcage. Her howl of pain was drowned out by Derek's growling. I scrambled out from under her and lunged that last foot at the circle, breaking it with a quick brush of my fingers.

Around the camp terrified witches rushed to arm themselves, calling magic to their fingertips or running for the table of potions. None made it very far before being descended upon by snarling fangs and red eyes.

I stood up, body singing with adrenaline. Naturally, that's when a bottle came flying out of nowhere, right at my face, and I blacked out.

* * *

Author's Note: Hey y'all. I know I haven't updated for a while, but between the end of the school year and job hunting and planning/writing a destiel stripper!AU that's consuming my soul, I haven't had much time to write this at all. Speaking of the StripperVerse, though, I was wondering if any of my readers might be interested in Beta!reading my fic? I've got a plan to make it a single chapter thing, about 20,000-30,000 words.

In other news, this concludes part 1, which was more a prologue to the main story then anything.

Come join me on Tumblr! I'm mlgumm there, too.


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